Background

The concept of an all-out BuddyPress survey began with @djpaul’s suggestion during an IRC devchat to embed a mini-survey in the plugin’s admin “What’s new” panel a week before BP 1.9 was released last December. The idea was to engage users in BP development for version 2.0.

Skype discussions a couple of days later brought about the decision that while the mini-survey was feasible, it would be much better to conduct a full-blown survey. It would be similar to the 2013 Codex Survey but with an expanded scope to help guide BP development in 2014. After some testing and reviews, the survey was launched in the second week of January.

Survey Method/Design

I prepared the sample survey questions based on users’ posts at the BP Forums and the tickets at BP Trac during the Christmas holidays for review of the core team. The final 32 questions were re-categorized into four sections: a) You and BuddyPress, b) Themes and Plugins, c) Components and Participation, and d) Opinions and Requests.

The online survey was created using Polldaddy.com. A variety of survey question types were employed to gather the data required: multiple choices, check boxes, a matrix, and open‐ended comments. The last type would also provide a veritable mine of information from responses in stand-alone questions and from “Other” options in multiple choices.

Key Findings

bbPress (2.x) is the top forums solution for BuddyPress sites

More than 50% of BuddyPress sites are on the latest versions of WordPress and BuddyPress.

Sixty-two percent of respondents have built 1 to 5 sites each and more than half of those sites are on Shared Hosting plans.

Theme Compatibility introduced in BP 1.7 has expanded the available theme choices for BuddyPress sites. Per survey, themes used for BuddyPress sites are now almost evenly divided between: a) Free WP themes with or without BP support, b) Commercial WP themes with or without BP support, and c) Own custom themes using BP theme compat or custom themes overriding template parts with BP theme compat disabled.

The top features wanted in a BuddyPress theme are:
• Compatibility with the latest BP version
• Responsive
• Light and Fresh Design

Moving Forward

The core team who has been updated regularly since this survey began, has already started discussions on the feature requests along with working on existing Trac tickets and creating new ones based on your responses to this survey. In addition, adopting the WordPress features-as-plugin process, some new BP features will be developed as plugins first to get more people involved in the frontend and backend requirements.

Big thanks to everyone that made this survey happen. Great job and really interesting to read through the responses. Everyone that also answered, thanks because you are what makes BuddyPress what it is.

Huge props to @mercime for the amazing summary, graphics and being awesome as always